Monday, May 23, 2016

From superhero to civil rights icon, Anthony Mackie plays the creative field

For Anthony Mackie, shuttling between worlds has been an everyday thing, not as a superhero but as a working actor. Six years ago, he opened in a new Broadway play; days later he was in Hollywood at the Academy Awards, on stage celebrating as one of the actors who powered “The Hurt Locker” to a Best Picture Oscar.

Call it an actor’s versatility: the ability to hold multiple roles in the mind and heart at (or about) the same time and still be able to function. As one of Hollywood’s busiest performers, the 37-year-old New Orleans native does it more than most, parlaying impressive chops as a theatrical actor into an equally stellar film career. ...

Shameless Self-Promotion II

America from 2004 to 2009 – its new ironies and old habits, its capacity for change – is topic A in this collection of essays and blog posts on popular culture, the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina, a transformative election, and the first 100 days of the Obama administration. | Now available at Authorhouse

shameless self-promotion

One nation subject to change: A collection of topical essays exploring television, hip-hop, patriotism, the use of language under Bush II, and the author's own reckoning with mortality. | Available at Authorhouse

A veteran journalist, producer and blogger, Michael Eric Ross is a frequent contributor to the content channels of Jerrick Media, and a periodic contributor to TheWrap, a major online source of entertainment news and analysis. He writes from Los Angeles on the arts, politics, race and ethnicity, and pop culture. A graduate of the University of Colorado, he's worked as a reporter, editor and critic at several newspapers and websites, including The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, MSN, Current and NBCNews.com. He was formerly an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Wired, Entertainment Weekly, PopMatters, Salon, The Root, seattlepi.com, NPR.com, theGrio, BuzzFeed, Medium and other publications. Author of the novel Flagpole Days (2003); and essay collections Interesting Times (2004) and American Bandwidth (2009), he contributed to the anthologies MultiAmerica (edited by Ishmael Reed, 1997) and Soul Food (2000).